page_title: History of childhood
section_title: Compulsory schooling
hierarchical_section_title: History of childhood / Modern childhood / Compulsory schooling
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Premier défilé des scouts arméniens à Constantinople (1918). Le porte drapeau est Vazken Andréassian, agé de 15 ans. Հայերեն: Հ.Մ.Ը.Մ.ի սկաուտներուն առաջին տողանցքը Կ.Պոլսոյ մէջ - Վ. Անդրէասեանը դրօշակակիրն է (1918):
context_page_description: The history of childhood has been a topic of interest in social history since the highly influential book Centuries of Childhood, published by French historian Philippe Ariès in 1960. He argued "childhood" as a concept was created by modern society. Ariès studied paintings, gravestones, furniture, and school records. He found before the 17th-century, children were represented as mini-adults.
  Other scholars have emphasized how medieval and early modern child rearing was not indifferent, negligent, nor brutal. Wilson argues that in the context of pre-industrial poverty and high infant mortality, actual child-rearing practices represented appropriate behavior in the circumstances. He points to extensive parental care during sickness, and to grief at death, sacrifices by parents to maximize child welfare, and a wide cult of childhood in religious practice.
context_section_description: The latter half of the century also saw the introduction of compulsory state schooling of children across Europe, which decisively removed children from the workplace into schools. 
  Modern methods of public schooling, with tax-supported schools, compulsory attendance, and educated teachers emerged first in Prussia in the early 19th century, and was adopted by Britain, the United States, France  and other modern nations by 1900.
  The market economy of the 19th century enabled the concept of childhood as a time of fun of happiness. Factory-made dolls and doll houses delighted the girls and organized sports and activities were played by the boys. The Boy Scouts was founded by Sir Robert Baden-Powell in 1908, which provided young boys with outdoor activities aiming at developing character, citizenship, and personal fitness qualities.
  The nature of childhood on the American frontier is disputed. One group of scholars, following the lead of novelists Willa Cather and Laura Ingalls Wilder, argue that the rural environment was salubrious. Historians Katherine Harris and Elliott West write that rural upbringing allowed children to break loose from urban hierarchies of age and gender, promoted family interdependence, and in the end produced children who were more self-reliant, mobile, adaptable, responsible, independent and more in touch with nature than their urban or eastern counterparts. On the other hand, historians Elizabeth Hampsten  and  Lillian Schlissel  offer a grim portrait of loneliness, privation, abuse, and demanding physical labor from an early age.   Riney-Kehrberg takes a middle position. Over the 21st century, some sex-selection clinics have shown a preference for female children over male children.
caption: First procession of Armenian scouts in Constantinople in 1918
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